


Solid Gold

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-01
Updated: 2007-01-01
Packaged: 2019-01-19 15:28:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12412932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: "A thought strikes Harry on this night before another year beings: What if he loses? What if he wins?"





	Solid Gold

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

It doesn’t feel like the eve of a New Year to Harry. He’s not even sure whether they have the date right. It could be that years have passed since he’s spared a thought for anything but Voldemort and Horcruxes and Dumbledore’s dead body. There’s a possibility that they’re days off and it isn’t really the thirty-first of December. 

They could be right, though. It’s likely, considering Hermione’s rather maniacal insistence on keeping up with time. Harry—well, Harry thinks time’s washed its hands of the three of them. He’s positive they’ve faded into the shadows of time and been forgotten by all, because they’re not really important. Not in the grand scheme of things.

The truth is Harry’s in this alone. He shouldn’t drag his best friends with him but he can’t seem to let them go. There’s an aura of significance to the friendship they’ve built over the years and Harry won’t ignore it. He won’t ignore it just as much as he will ignore the specters that haunt his sweetest and, in such sweetness, cruelest dreams. There are no long-haired, redheaded flames of courage in this forest.

He doesn’t think of Ginny.

Harry thinks of all the people who would fall apart if Ron were to die. Mrs. Weasley would sob for days on end. Mr. Weasley would be dazed, completely unable to function properly—but he would manage, for his family. Harry barely knows Bill and Charlie, but he’s sure they’d shed a tear for the death of their youngest brother. And Percy—Percy would probably return home. Percy would meet the loss of one brother with the gift of a lost one. Harry can’t see just what Fred and George would do—he knows it would involve anger and rage and an instant protective reaction—they would want to protect Ginny.

God.

Harry squeezes his eyes shut at the thought of her. Ginny. Ginny would cry. Ginny would find Harry and make sure he is okay. Ginny would do everything to help everyone. She would help…

Hermione.

Harry’s head whips to the side as if he has been slapped. Hermione. He tries to picture what she would be like if Ron were to die. Inconsolable. Unseeing. Bland. Dull. Dead. He can’t quite wrap his mind around it. He imagines she would look just like Ron would, if Hermione died.

Harry’s shoulders droop with the weight of these thoughts. He’ll throw himself in front of them, he thinks. He’ll do anything to save them. He always has, as Hermione said once, had a saving-people-thing. Who better to save than the two people who’ve made life worth living for the past six-and-a-half-years?

A thought strikes Harry on this night before another year beings:

What if he loses?

He can’t lose. Not after the promises he’s made—even before the one about saving Ron and Hermione. After all, Harry did give in to Ginny, in the end. And he can’t break that promise.

He told himself not to let her talk him into it, but she managed, as she always has. She pulled the promise from him as if her life depended on it. 

Who knows? 

Maybe it does.

You come back, Harry.

I will.

Promise?

A beat.

Promise!

…Promise.

She was crying. Harry’s seen her crying perhaps three times in both their short lifetimes. He reached out to that crying, gasping girl in his memories and only grasps air. Her heart is feeble and strong all at once—Harry can barely stand it. He nearly rips out his hair at the thought of her right now, ringing in a new year without her brother, without her friend, without her…without Harry.

And of course—there are all the people in the world who would shake their heads and say Harry Potter, he tried, but he just couldn’t do it…

They’d be cursing him for his weaknesses when Voldemort came to their doors with his green rush of cold and unforgiving death.

If Harry loses, the world loses. He shivers and runs a hand over his face. He wouldn’t have to worry anymore, though. Eventually he would see everyone again, beyond the veil. He could say sorry then, for not trying hard enough, for not giving enough thought to the process of killing his sworn enemy.

For there is a natural hatred within Harry that leads him on, a hatred for the scum and hatred and evil that touches his life every day—that had touched his life since the day he was born. His parents jump into his mind and Harry claps a hand over his mouth to prevent a cry from escaping his lips. Now, at the end of this year, he feels the loss of his parents fresh and startling and sharp and so painful he can barely breathe. He wonders if Sirius felt like this every day of his life while he was alive. It’s a nostalgia for the lost days of beauty and youth and glory, the days where people laughed as they fell in love and danced in leaves and wore pretty white dresses when they got married, their red and black hair mixing on sheets as they met and pulled away and became completely linked to one another in way that was primal and instinctual all at once.

Ron finds him between the shadows and under the trees. 

Coupl’a minutes, he says. Hermione wants us all to be together. For the beginning.

Harry nearly laughs, but he doesn’t want to upset anyone. He gets up and follows Ron back to the campsite, where the three tents are set up—they all know Hermione will sleep in Ron’s tonight, anyway. He doesn’t know why Hermione bothers to keep up this charade.

A thought strikes Harry on this night before another year beings:

What if he wins?

…wins?

Harry barely thinks of it. He can’t imagine life would be pretty, even if he won. People could still die. He could lose Ron. Hermione. He could lose Ginny.

He can’t imagine a life without them. He can’t imagine a life without Voldemort, without a purpose. Then again, he used to be unable to imagine a life without Dumbledore.

He’s living that life right now. He’s doing just fine.

He does laugh then, and Hermione and Ron each give him their own kind of look. Neither says anything. They’re used to this.

Hermione glances at her watch. Ten seconds, she whispers. Ten is so much, Harry thinks. Ten days. Ten minutes. Ten seconds. Nothing. Everything, really. No one makes a sound. Harry isn’t counting down in his head, but he knows Ron his. The moonlight reflecting off the snow is blinding Harry—he feels curious at that moment. He’s never been so sad in his life. He’s never been so hopeful.

Harry thinks of Ginny.

He wishes he could tell her that new years mean new beginnings.

He wishes he could tell himself that new years mean new beginnings.

He does want to tell himself the truth. He looks up at the sky and thinks that there will never be another moment like this in the entire year—the infinitesimal moment between one year and the next, between Hermione’s voice whispering one and her soft kiss on Harry’s cheek, then her entirely different kiss for Ron. 

There’s a twisted sort of glory in living like this, and Harry doesn’t pretend it isn’t there. This is the stuff of legends—no one ever bothers to fill in the disgusting details and the hero’s faults. It’s quiet around him, and Harry simply thinks that this war is about making things different, about the new beating out the old, about glory. The gilded age has come and gone. 

—Harry’s the one who’s got to bring about the era of solid gold.

…………

“All is quiet on New Year's Day / A world in white gets underway / I want to be with you / Be with you night and day / Nothing changes on New Year's Day / On New Year's Day…

Under a blood red sky / A crowd has gathered in black and white / Arms entwined, the chosen few / The newspapers says, says / Say it's true it's true / And we can break through / Though torn in two / We can be one…

And so we're told this is the golden age / And gold is the reason for the wars we wage / Though I want to be with you / Be with you night and day / Nothing changes On New Year's Day / On New Year's Day…”

{ **New Years Day** , by U2} 


End file.
